Word.ws English Dictionary

hounde

hounde is the obsolete spelling of hound.

Meaning of hound

Noun

hound (plural hounds)

  1. A dog, particularly a breed with a good sense of smell developed for hunting other animals.
    • The hounds were baying a fox.
  2. Any canine animal.
  3. (broadly) Someone who seeks something.
    • On the way out of the building I was asked for my autograph. If I'd known who the signature hound thought I was, I would've signed appropriately.1996, Marc Parent, Turning Stones, Harcourt Brace & Company, →ISBN, page 93
  4. (broadly) A male who constantly seeks the company of desirable women.
    • "She had a good many successors, John."
      "You are such a hound, in that respect, Goodson," said Claywell, "and you have always been such a hound, that it astounds me to find you—unaccompanied."1915, Norman Duncan, "A Certain Recipient", in Harper's, volume 122, number 787, December 1915, republished in Harper's Monthly Magazine, volume 122, December 1915 to May 1916, page 108, "Are you...
  5. A despicable person.
    • Boy! false hound!c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    Synonyms:
    cur
  6. A houndfish.

See all 11 meanings of hound

Forms of hounde

pluralhoundes

Questions about hounde

What is hounde the obsolete spelling of?
Hounde is the obsolete spelling of hound.

Words near hounde in the dictionary

  1. hound-dogs
  2. hounddog
  3. hounddogged
  4. hounddogging
  5. hounddogs
  6. hounde
  7. hounded
  8. hounded down
  9. hounder
  10. hounders
  11. houndes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hounde (page history and authors); hound (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “hounde.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hounde. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.